Russell Scott Backpackers - Leeds

DO NOT STAY Where do I even begin My two friends (male) and I (female) booked a triple room with ensuite for three nights a few months ago, and got hit with an email a few days before our stay saying that there were “major maintenance works” which had impacted the whole building and we would be moved to their other property. As a result of this we changed our booking to just one night, and as we arrived we paid for our stay and were told that check in would be at 5pm and to come back then. We came back at 5 to see the “room in another property” was quite literally a part of an active construction site, with walls still not up, floors exposed concrete and plywood and our room being three beds in a room with no curtains, carpet or anything besides three single beds with dirty and torn sheets which were covered in dust from the construction. The bathrooms were still not complete upstairs- and most definitely not the ensuite room we booked. But it was too late to cancel as we had to leave for an event. The manager showed us the kitchen- where the sink was full of dirty dishes and three couches were piled in covered in dust- opened the fridge to show us a bottle of milk and some cereal and assured us “you wouldn’t get anything like this in another hostel!”. The place being an active construction site was not my main concern though, the manager also lives at the hostel and was quite off putting, attempting to get me to see the room without my friends when we first arrived, and as my friends insisted they came with he abandoned the idea Every room had an (easy to guess) four digit pin that he knew, and to our delight he was sleeping in pretty much a closet at the end of the hallway as we left for our evening. We came back from the event to the building pitch black, scary in itself and even scarier to go upstairs and try to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and see the manager loitering in the showers and not acknowledging us walking past. We went to sleep and slept terribly due to the trucks going in and out and construction ensuing at 6am the next morning, the dust making us cough all night as well as the light coming through the window from having no curtains. I KNOW! We should have found somewhere else to stay as soon as we saw the state of things but honestly- lesson learned for next time. In absolute shock of the unprofessional experience we had as we leave today. I wouldn’t stay there again even if they were paying me.

DO NOT STAY Where do I even begin My two friends (male) and I (female) booked a triple room with ensuite for three nights a few months ago, and got hit with an email a few days before our stay saying that there were “major maintenance works” which had impacted the whole building and we would be moved to their other property. As a result of this we changed our booking to just one night, and as we arrived we paid for our stay and were told that check in would be at 5pm and to come back then. We came back at 5 to see the “room in another property” was quite literally a part of an active construction site, with walls still not up, floors exposed concrete and plywood and our room being three beds in a room with no curtains, carpet or anything besides three single beds with dirty and torn sheets which were covered in dust from the construction. The bathrooms were still not complete upstairs- and most definitely not the ensuite room we booked. But it was too late to cancel as we had to leave for an event. The manager showed us the kitchen- where the sink was full of dirty dishes and three couches were piled in covered in dust- opened the fridge to show us a bottle of milk and some cereal and assured us “you wouldn’t get anything like this in another hostel!”. The place being an active construction site was not my main concern though, the manager also lives at the hostel and was quite off putting, attempting to get me to see the room without my friends when we first arrived, and as my friends insisted they came with he abandoned the idea Every room had an (easy to guess) four digit pin that he knew, and to our delight he was sleeping in pretty much a closet at the end of the hallway as we left for our evening. We came back from the event to the building pitch black, scary in itself and even scarier to go upstairs and try to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and see the manager loitering in the showers and not acknowledging us walking past. We went to sleep and slept terribly due to the trucks going in and out and construction ensuing at 6am the next morning, the dust making us cough all night as well as the light coming through the window from having no curtains. I KNOW! We should have found somewhere else to stay as soon as we saw the state of things but honestly- lesson learned for next time. In absolute shock of the unprofessional experience we had as we leave today. I wouldn’t stay there again even if they were paying me.

Creepy man running the place. A real leerer. Very uncomfortable for a solo female traveller. You have to walk past the “reception” where he always was, day and night, to get to the showers / toilets, so he always knows where you are. One girl came to warn me I should be careful because he had followed her into the bathroom when she got up to use it in the middle of the night.